Love Among the Particles

by Norman Lock

  Claire admired the dashing aviators. They had little mustaches, leather jackets and helmets, and long white scarves, which snapped behind them as they bounced down the field and took off.

  After the show, Stanley Marvel gave one of the aviators two dollars to take Claire and him up. They rode in a big circle. At one point, they could see Haddon Hall Hotel with its red tile roofs and green awnings and, behind it, the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean looked blue and flat. As the aviator turned his airplane toward the field, Stanley looked at the people milling about below him. From where he sat, all the derbies looked like periods.

  Claire Moon’s Thoughts in the Airplane

  When the plane went up, I felt this feeling between my legs; it tickled me and made me want to wet, like on the roller coaster. Suddenly, we were in the air, and I had another peculiar sensation. I was excited. My nipples got hard and the rough cotton of my shimmy rubbed against them. In the wind, I felt like I was tugged at. I turned around, and the pilot winked at me—I’m sure he did. His mustache was blond. His eyes were blue as the ocean. When we turned around to land, I felt like all the men on the ground were looking up my dress.

  Claire Moon’s Portrait (II) 1. There is always the possibility that everything in her first portrait is false.

  2. This possibility may mean Claire is more complex than we at first thought.

  Hotel Breakfast

  Stanley and Claire went downstairs to breakfast. Breakfast at Haddon Hall was a high-class affair. A waiter with black morning coat and velvet collar, waxed mustaches, and hair oiled to the top of his head showed them to their table. On the table were a white linen cloth, two white linen napkins rolled inside rings, a bowl of fruit, a cut-glass vase of pinks, and a card. On the card someone had written in calligraphy with India ink: Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Marvel.

  A string quartet played chamber music in the drawing room, through the double doors.

  From where Stanley and Claire sat, they could see the ocean. Bright parasols paraded on the yellow boardwalk, escorted by bobbing skimmers. Prams and bicycles rattled over the boards. Kites with rag tails flew from the beach over the ocean; and just beyond the white-edged surf, small boats drifted at anchor while men in derbies and skimmers and ladies with parasols fished for the delicate white-fleshed weakfish.

  A waiter brought them ice water, silver, and the menu.

  MENU

  orange juice

  buttered toast

  eggs (shirred, fried or scrambled)

  bacon

  sausage

  or Philadelphia scrapple

  baked scrod

  fried potatoes

  & coffee or tea

  As they ate, they listened to the string quartet; admired the quiet precision of the black-coated and oiled waiters moving among the tables with deference and the assuredness of people who know how to behave in opulent surroundings; watched the men and women promenade on the boardwalk; watched the boats at anchor lift and settle on the ocean’s heave, the sudden bounding of a sailboat; and caught the occasional flash of sun against a fish’s belly as it was reeled in and netted.

  Stanley Marvel looked up from his eggs and started. Rolly stood over them, tall and blond, elegant in white linen suit and pink tie.

  Disruption of the Breakfast Airs of Morning

  Stanley Marvel was not pleased to see his friend Rolly, who dragged a chair over to the table and sat without waiting to be asked.1. He hadn’t forgiven him for tying his Ford truck to the fireplug.

  2. He resented his attempts to lure him to a taproom and an easy girl on his wedding day.

  3. He was shocked that Rolly had brought colored people to the Presbyterian church and had stolen the fans.

  4. He wanted to be alone with Claire.

  5. He secretly feared Rolly’s power over women.

  6. He hated Rolly’s pink tie.

  “I would be pleased if you’d leave immediately,” Stanley said.

  Rolly drew on the white linen cloth with a fingernail, looking all the while at Claire. Claire blushed deeply at the throat and looked at Stanley. Rolly pushed back his chair and stood up.

  “All right. But I promise you this: I will take Claire one of these days, and I’ll kill you, Stanley Marvel, if you try to stop me.”

  Stanley knew Rolly was capable of killing him.

  Rolly: A Portrait

  Rolly came from a big stone house. There was a gravel drive in the shape of a half-moon in front of the house, and automobiles were always parked there. Not black Fords, but red Double Berlines, cream Renault Petit Ducs with green trim, yellow Rolland-Pilains, and white Peugeot Double Phaetons with red leather seats.

  There were servants, and Rolly would sleep with one of the maids when he came home for vacation.

  He loved to hunt. He and his father had gone shooting out west with Teddy Roosevelt when Rolly was a boy. He liked the company of violent men. He boxed and fenced at the university. He flew his own airplane. His father had taught him to shoot a dueling pistol with deadly skill. His father had killed two men. Rolly loved his father.

  Rolly was cruel to women: He had beaten a girl in his rooms, but his father prevented the incident from becoming a scandal by making a large endowment to the university. The Modern Language Building bears his name.

  Rolly dressed in flashy clothes, enjoyed appearing in bad taste. He wore French cologne. His underwear was monogrammed, and women loved him.

  The Call-up: 1916

  Luckily for Stanley, there was a war. Rolly enlisted in the Army Air Corps. A few months later, Stanley Marvel was drafted into the Signal Corps. He trained at Fort Lee, Virginia, and was sent from there directly to France without leave and without a great coat. He received his great coat when he disembarked from the troopship, in New York City, in 1918.

  Stanley Marvel at War

  “It’s a heck of a war!”

  Postcard from the Front

  Dear Claire,

  We are in the Argonne Forest. I am in a rest area, so do not worry. The sergeant says there’s nothing to it, and we’ll be home by Christmas. I saw some very fine French cows this morning on a little farm. It made me think of the butter and egg business. I hope you are well and getting out once in a while with friends. I miss you.

  Love,

  Your husband Stanley

  Stanley Marvel: A Portrait

  Stanley Marvel was over six feet tall. His father was an ingot straightener in a steel town, and Stanley had won a scholarship because of the things he could do with basketballs. He liked to be cheered by the crowd more than he liked basketball.

  He was someone who needed to be liked. He hated unpleasantness. He didn’t understand why Rolly was making things unpleasant for him.

  He didn’t know how to fight and, if left to himself, would have guided the enemy’s bayonet for him into his own vitals. Luckily for him, he never got near a German.

  He loved girls and still believed a beautiful girl was the source of all art and was the song of the world. He would have groveled at Claire’s feet to have something to worship and to prove that she, as a woman, was worthy of adoration.

  While Stanley Marvel Was in a Trench …

  Stanley Marvel sat in a trench, quaking. He sat on a board to keep the seat of his pants dry. His feet were in the mud. It was raining. His shoes were wet. His puttees were wet and unraveled. The blanket he had around him was wet. It smelled like a wet blanket. Stanley hadn’t had a change of clothes for three weeks and so his clothes smelled, too.

  He was quaking because he was wet and cold and because of the aerial bombardment. The aerial bombardment had been going on for three days without stop. It had finally gotten on Stanley’s nerves. Bad nerves made him quake with each concussion. He could feel each concussion in his ears. They hurt him, but he let them hurt. He could not keep his ears covered anymore. His nerves were bad, and he just sat there on his piece of board, in the mud, wet and quaking.

  He thought he would like to have a cigar.

&
nbsp; He thought the sight of the aerial bombardment was very pretty. He thought it looked just like the fireworks over the river the night he had met Claire Moon.

  I’ll put electricity in the house when I get home, he thought.

  Claire Was at a Party …

  While Stanley Marvel sat in his trench and quaked, Claire was at a party. She wore a pink summer dress and low white shoes. Her strawberry-blond hair was unraveling from its knot on her head. She looked very pretty. Her white gloves were in her purse; and she was drinking champagne cocktails, one after another. She scandalized her friends by coming to the party in a motorcar with a handsome slacker, who was a floorwalker in a furniture department.

  “I want to have some fun,” she said.

  And Rolly Was in the Air

  While Stanley Marvel sat in his trench and quaked and Claire was at a party with a slacker, having fun, Rolly was in a Jenny going loop-the-loop to escape the German triwing on his tail. There was very little night flying done then, but Rolly was doing it.

  The struts hummed, and Rolly’s white silk scarf crackled.

  I will get Claire as soon as I get home, he thought. I will spread her delicious white limbs on my bed and get her.

  Then Rolly crashed.

  Then Rolly was sent to the field hospital.

  Then Rolly’s left arm was amputated.

  Then Rolly’s left sleeve was pinned up.

  And after a time, he went home.

  Armistice

  And then the war was over.

  Demobilization

  Stanley Marvel was put in a troopship and sent home. After crossing the Atlantic in eight days, he was put off the ship at New York Harbor. The ship bumped against the dock. They gave him a great coat. It was brand-new. He wore his great coat as he marched to the Armory. It was summer. Then he was mustered out.

  Reunion

  Stanley Marvel went home to Philadelphia. He came by train and walked along Broad Street in his uniform and great coat. People were sick of seeing soldiers.

  “Hey, buddy, the war is over!” they yelled.

  “Get a job!” they yelled.

  He stood in the living room of his house and said, “Is anybody home?”

  Claire was at the movies with the handsome slacker, who was no longer a slacker now that the war was over. He was manager of the furniture department.

  Abduction

  Several weeks later, Rolly forced his way into Stanley Marvel’s house and shot Stanley in the knee with an army pistol.

  “That’s for you,” he said.

  “And you’re for me,” he said to Claire.

  He took Claire outside and pushed her into a motorcar driven by a confederate he had engaged while in the army hospital. The confederate had his right arm pinned up, and together they drove the motorcar to the airfield.

  Rolly and Claire were flying to Canada in Rolly’s airplane when the accident occurred.

  Strange Accident

  August 29. One of the strangest accidents known to aviation caused the deaths of Rolly Wincapaw, well-known playboy and flying ace, and Claire Moon Marvel of Philadelphia. Wincapaw was piloting his Fokker T-2 over Lake George when a gust of wind wrapped the lady’s skirt around the “joystick,” or control column. Frantic efforts to disentangle it failed, and in a wild swoop the airplane struck the water with terrific impulse. A sliver from a wing strut pierced the pilot’s skull, and the unconscious Mrs. Marvel was drowned.

  Conclusion (I)

  Claire made no resistance during Rolly’s abduction of her, and was secretly glad.

  Conclusion (II)

  Claire made heroic resistance against her abductor and entangled the joystick with her dress rather than dishonor her husband.

  Who’s to say?

  To Each According to His Sentence

  Words create out of silence and nothing everything we know.

  —Alessandro Comi

  1.

  I have not read Gaston Leroux’s 1909 novel, The Phantom of the Opera. Like many others, I know the story by its cinematic adaptations: the 1925 silent film with Lon Chaney as the Phantom and the 1943 version starring Claude Rains. (There are newer treatments.) I do not wish to read the novel, nor is reading it in any way essential to my purpose, which is to re-create The Phantom of the Opera. You will be led, inevitably, to think of Borges; but believe me, I am not such a fool as to attempt what he has done! In any case, his intention, if it can ever be said to be known, is not mine. Mine is to build an edifice of prose in which to hide. What drink had done, words will now do. According to commentaries I have read, the 1925 film version is more faithful to the novel than the 1943 variant, although the former omits much of the original. Neither version contains what in the original is for me of principal interest: that the Phantom was an architect employed in the construction of the opera’s cellars. This detail in the Phantom’s background suggested to me a possible way out of an increasingly impossible détente with—I leave it to you to say what.

  My first impulse was to create anew—that is, to write a story in which to achieve my end. I struggled for months, however, without discovering a narrative structure with a mise-en-scène so richly provided with hiding places as the Phantom’s. (Not even in Borges do we find Leroux’s gothic elaboration of the principle of concealment, perhaps because the Frenchman had, in aid of his imagination, the actual Paris opera house.) At last I determined to follow the example of the hermit crab and borrow another’s construction: Leroux’s novel and its cinematic equivalents. I would appropriate the story as I knew it (a conflation of sources). Having found a form to inhabit, there remained the problem of how to insert myself into it.

  2.

  In the Phantom’s rooms far below the Paris Opera, there are two mirrors: one in which the silvering behind the glass has tarnished, making all that is reflected in it obscure, and another, which presents to each thing seen within it its likeness. At times the Phantom wishes to see himself as he is—in all his ugliness—and will gaze hours on end in the second mirror. For a while he will be a tragic figure, a Werther doomed to a life underground, despised, shunned—a castaway deprived of hope and love. He will revel in an austere pathos, making it his meat and drink—his tainted meat and bitter drink—until pathos, drained of tragic feeling, becomes maudlin. He will long then for the sentimentalities of song and beauty—that of a woman, young and virtuous, whose chaste lips taste of violet pastilles, a woman altogether worthy of his abasement. He will weep luxuriously. He will become drunk. He will submit himself to the engines and instruments of torture installed in the opera’s cellars during the second revolution. He will compose for the organ Romantic rhapsodies. At other times, however, the Phantom is impelled to gaze at himself in the tarnished mirror (the one the world calls kind). Touching his disfigured face, he becomes a grim Realist, who understands that what can be seen of the world is not in any case the truth. It is then he is most to be feared, for he will wish nothing more than to destroy beauty, to remove its pleasing mask—even with a knife.

  THE PHANTOM: I have not left the opera house since escaping Devil’s Island [or overseeing the construction of the opera’s cellars, depending on one’s source material] and taking refuge underground. But I go out on the roof at night when moved by the music and sit atop the statue of the winged figure above the frieze of grotesques.

  3.

  Neither was I attracted to the Phantom’s suffering (sumptuous though it may be) nor did I pity him his agony or the hell in which fate—say, rather, accident (of birth or engraver’s acid)—had consigned him. No, the solitariness of his life in the cellars of the opera house drew me to his story—this and his having been the architect of his own prison. That a man’s search for privacy should have been abetted by a genius (however perverse) for form—this I, a writer dismayed by the presence of others, found attractive. How I came to this extremity of reserve, I do not know. Whether by a sudden contract with sobriety, made in a hospital emergency room, or the result of somethi
ng less apocalyptic—all I do know is that I lacked a necessary defense against the world and could not—cannot—endure it.

  THE PHANTOM: Consider what it means to have been shut away in a cell beneath the opera house—there to be subjected to torments unknown even by the damned, whose chief desire is to die. Like them to pray daily to be dead and to curse God at finding oneself yet alive; to say endless rosaries of suffering and to endure savage martyrdoms; to undergo incomparable mortifications and to invent anew the theorems of annihilation and remain, in spite of all, caged inside one’s own hated self—hated because it insists on sovereignty over death and will not, will not even in hell’s fifth cellar, let go of life! Think further of this same animal (for he cannot be said any longer to be a man) cornered by walls, which to gnaw on is to break even rats’ teeth, released into the open air at last, only to be delivered into another hell—a flowery, tropical vacation hell where all that is rots and rot is all there is. They set me down among lepers and the mad and would have fed my corpse to shark or crocodile or the accommodating mire! Devil’s Island. No place more aptly named! No place in the history of torment better equipped to hollow out a man and fill the cavity with gall! Having suffered this (you cannot know all that “this” entails) and having borne it, or not borne it, accompanied by such a disfigurement as mine—do you wonder I am cruel, that I can be moved swiftly to murder? Wonder, instead, how I could not be otherwise. I ought to be dead, wanting nothing else; but denied that balm and deliverance, I am and can be no other than a malignant rage.

  Unlike the Phantom, I am not disfigured, deformed, or solitary. At least in none of the visible dimensions. I am of ordinary appearance and possessed of a wife, two grown children, and a sufficiency of friends (meaning enough to appease a small appetite for society but not so many as to make writing impossible). I am, as I said, embarrassed by the presence of others outside that little circle of intimate relations; racked by self-consciousness; encumbered by the obligation to converse with strangers so as not to be considered strange. The truth is, I wish to be thought of not at all—neither looked at nor discussed, nor weighed and found wanting. I wish to be invisible like him, like the Phantom, and to be left alone to do my work. We are creative men, whose joy is only in creation; both bedeviled by an unopposable need to invent forms. His genius was to have designed a structure (the labyrinthine cellars beneath the opera house) that concealed him and modeled his unconscious mind. (If the mollusk has a mind, might not its thoughts be deduced from the topology of its shell?) My intention in these pages is to follow the Phantom’s example (and also, perhaps, the mollusk’s): to devise a form in which I can disappear.